I see the year winding down, a palpable quiet after a boisterous storm. This past year has brought many twists and turns. Today, I stand in my self like a modern Odysseus, looking out toward an image that might be…home.
I was born on the east coast, lived and worked my way through undergraduate school, my first professional acting job, my first self-produced one-person show, and training that was so influential in the way I move and see, even as the seas pulled me east and west.
When I came to New York City the first time it was to learn the skills of an actor. I schooled, trained, conditioned and practiced. I could not be filled.
I have continued to gather and refine, listen, watch, stretch and finesse. Long ago I decided that the skills I gather have more to do with developing my self, and less with craft that is detached from specific work. Yet the work expanded to include clown, aerial, burlesque, contemporary and folk dance and forms I’ve created.
Coming home after such a long journey, I am struck by certain observations:
The strangers I met on my journey now seem like old friends.
My memories of home died when I returned home.
The home of a traveler is present experience.
I am struck by how so many artists act like merchants. In fact, I am struck by how so many people and institutions act like merchants. There is an inane and desperate fight to prove that arts have value. To who? Not sure. What for? Again, not sure. Is art’s value quantitative… qualitative…tax deductible?
These are not my questions.
Here is my prediction. Art is going back to the heart. (already well on its way)
For me, as one who spent over ten thousand hours developing this ‘instrument’ I call Karen, I am learning to exist in my own heart, all other details having fallen away.
So, Bella Deluxe is now in New York. I will keep you posted on what she is up to, and how and where the work will be presented.
Ciao.
Bellatutti 